As with the last alleged ‘lockdown’, I am having trouble taking this one particularly seriously. This is not to say that I am ignoring the government guidelines because, generally, by and large, I am doing exactly that. But looking around, I am wondering what exactly has changed since pre lockdown days a week or so ago.
Okay, the pubs are closed as are ‘non-essential shops’, although it’s easy enough to get a drink if you want one, as I…ahem…occasionally do. And given that supermarkets are still open, you can still get those ‘non-essential’ items.
My job means that I am exempt from the government’s ‘stay at home’ message, so I am travelling around Bristol and South Gloucestershire much like I did before. Roads are far busier than they have been for a very long time and there appear to be as many people out and about that last time.
This is down to at least in part – a major part, in fact – the fact that schools, colleges and universities are open, in the case of schools, pretty well as normal. Passing close to our local school this morning, the pavements were crowded with people dropping off their children and paying scant attention to social distancing. It was even worse in my local Tesco shop where social distancing is in any event impossible and even if it wasn’t, I doubt people would pay any attention to it. Why this should be, I can only speculate.
Given the growing number of infections, as well as the rising number of hospitalisations and deaths, I am more aware than ever of the virus. Much as I am weary and tired of this endless suspension of real life, I find myself more than ever not particularly wanting to catch COVID-19, particularly since a vaccine appears to be just around the corner. It would be most unfortunate to die of the bloody thing a few weeks before Pfizer’s vaccine saves the day.
Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson should have used this belated four week ‘lockdown’ to fix the shambolic SERCO track and trace, run by their friends and cronies, but there is no sign they are doing so. Added to the evidence of my own eyes, of people seemingly carrying on with their lives as normal, I can’t conclude that this ends well.
In reality, the new lockdown isn’t a lockdown at all. A few shops have closed, people have been told to stay at home (very many aren’t), people have been told not to mix households (they are, in massive numbers), people have been told to maintain social distancing (they aren’t) and let’s not even start on mask-wearing (patchy, at best). And, as I can testify, men are still using supermarket toilets and not washing their hands after urinating.
If the COVID numbers come down, they won’t for long. And will families really abandon Christmas in favour of a Turkey dinner via Zoom? As one person said to me this week, “If Dominic Cummings can take a week’s holiday at his second home, and then go sight-seeing at a local castle on his wife’s birthday, at the very height of the first wave, who on earth will be listening when Cummings tells Boris Johnson to tell the rest of us to do as we’re told at Christmas?” No way would I suggest to anyone that they should ignore government rules. I am just saying there will be people, probably quite a lot of people, who will tell Cummings to do one.
